Perhaps I should have seen this coming from the way the band picture looked. Predator-like hair, thick platform boots, keychains, abandoned dirty warehouse. Death metal look. No corpsepaint, no foggy background, no mystery. Or, perhaps, I should have gotten a hint as to where Crionics were heading by playing Human Error (Ways to Selfdestruction) and Armageddon’s Evolution back-to-back. In the debut the young Poles were creating an almost Emperor-like atmosphere with their blackened death metal, but Armageddon “evolved” further down the straighter death metal path of which now Neuthrone is zenith. Or nadir, depending on the eye of the beholder … and I can’t hold back my disappointment.

There is no doubt that by Album #3 Crionics have become a much tighter, precision-driven outfit. Neuthrone is a clinic in unyielding, senses pummeling metal propelled by mechanized guitar riffs, triggered bass drumming and razor-sharp production. Waran vocals became clearer, lower in register, and more confident. The speed is fantastic, the listening experience devastating. However, and this is where I am feeling shortchanged, significantly, is how unusual and unique atmospherics were sacrificed at the altar of the Punishing God of “barbaric death metal”.

The album is short on eerie atmospherics of Superiors and “end of the world” flavor found on When the Sun Goes Out … Crionics rarely lay off the speed, mostly eschewing memorable riffs (Frozen Hope) at the expense of jackhammering away. Not presented with the lyrics I surmise that Neuthrone deals with futuristic subjects, explaining the robot guitar playing quite a bit, but when the keyboards are given some role, it is also mostly to paint some spooky spacey hues (Humanmeat Cargo, Outer Empire).

I have tried to argue with many that Crionics is NOT a lesser Behemoth. Hailing from the same country, treading the waters of similar metal style, the comparisons are simply begging to be made. After Neuthrone I would be hardpressed to win a debate. Unfortunately for Crionics, not only their countrymen, as well as Zyklon, are more famous, their music is also more memorable than Neuthrone. Even Vader is now more varied, going from brutal death metal to bouts of thrash (heard here on Neuthrone on Arrival 2033 and Hell Earth) to orchestral ambiance in one album span. Crionics combined the blastbeats of Morbid Angel with the riffs of Dimmu Borgir and missed on the darkness of the former and grandeur of the latter.

With Neuthrone Crionics converged courses with Thy Disease, a cyber death metal band home to some of Crionics members. For Thy Disease Neuthrone might have been a step up from Rat Age, but for Crionics … you decide.